MADISON, WI—John W. Vaudreuil, United States Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin, announced that Kristen Smith, 31, Aurora, Col., was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge James D. Peterson to 25 years in federal prison, to be followed by 10 years of supervised release, for kidnapping an infant from a home in Beloit, Wis., in February 2014.

Smith was found guilty of this charge on July 31, 2014, after a four-day trial in U.S. District Court in Madison. The jury reached their verdict after less than three hours of deliberation.

Smith took the four-day-old infant on February 6, 2014. The baby was recovered approximately thirty hours later in a plastic tote behind a gas station in West Branch, Iowa.

At the trial, the evidence showed that Smith faked a pregnancy and kidnapped the infant with the intent to take him back to Colorado and claim him as her child.

In sentencing Smith, Judge Peterson called her a liar and said, “You would have let the baby die rather than admit you had taken him.”

United States Attorney Vaudreuil said, “Kristen Smith left a baby outside in bitterly cold temperatures and for over 24 hours denied any knowledge of his whereabouts. Her callous disregard for this child’s life merits this long prison sentence.”

The conviction of Smith is the result of an investigation by the Town of Beloit Police Department; Beloit Police Department; Rock County Sheriff’s Office; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Wausau Police Department; Wisconsin Department of Justice, Division of Criminal Investigation; Illinois State Police; Iowa State Patrol; Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation; Cedar County (Iowa) Sheriff’s Office; West Branch (Iowa) Police Department; Iowa Division of Intelligence; Iowa Department of Public Safety; Denver Police Department, Aurora (Colorado) Police Department, Jefferson County (Colorado) Police Department, Arapahoe County (Colorado) Sheriff’s Office, and Westworth Village (Texas) Police Department. The prosecution of the case has been handled by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Julie Pfluger and Stephen Sinnott.